Rebecca Silbert

Senior Fellow and DirectorRenewing Communities

Rebecca Silbert is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Renewing Communities project, a statewide four-year initiative to increase access to higher education for currently and formerly incarcerated Californians. Previously, Rebecca was the Executive Director of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at UC Berkeley School of Law where she, along with the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, developed the strategic plan for Renewing Communities. Rebecca has extensive experience managing large research and policy projects, particularly in the areas of promising reentry practices, criminal defense, and education. Prior to joining the Warren Institute, Rebecca oversaw a recidivism study for the San Francisco Community Corrections Partnership. She also tried cases for nine years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Northern District of California. She earlier worked as an associate at the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, LLP in San Francisco, clerked for Edward N. Cahn, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and worked with the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children. Rebecca graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1996) and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley (1991).